


Blood

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [5]
Category: Humans (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Fill #8 for 'the' Humans fanwork challenge on tumblr. Just pure fluff. Because it was the angstiest title on the list, and I'm nothing if not a rebel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> if you follow me on tumblr, you've probably already been subjected to these fills, I'm just transferring them to here because my ao3 account was looking annoyingly under-representative of the amount of Humans obsessing I do on a daily basis. 
> 
> This one in particular is just a bit of silliness because I started so many angsty versions and didn't like any of them. So Sophie came to my rescue.

 

All it was supposed to be was a project about family trees.

Goodness knows, these days, there are probably only about seven children in her class of thirty who live with both parents, but Miss Wilkinson had thought she was safe asking little Sophie Hawkins to come to the front and explain _her_ family tree. She’s met both Mr and Mrs Hawkins, and had Sophie’s older brother in her class only a few years ago - the Hawkinses seem to be a nice, ordinary nuclear family to start things off, before the discussion moves on to step-families and half-siblings and all the other vocabulary her class of seven-year-olds will need for the project. She was not quite expecting Sophie to start an entire debate on the subject of what constitutes a family.

“This is Mia,” the little girl had said, holding up a photograph of herself, with a woman who looked to be of Chinese descent. She had unusually green eyes, but cameras could do funny things to lighting, and this clearly wasn’t a Synth - the facial expression was too animated, too alive. Perhaps it was contact lenses, Miss Wilkinson thought. People did that, apparently. She wasn’t one to judge.

“And this is Mia’s sister,” Sophie continued, holding up a coloured drawing. “I did want to get you a proper photo of her as well, but we haven’t seen her for a little while. That’s what she looks like, anyway.”

She placed the drawing on the table in front of her, and Miss Wilkinson raised her eyebrows. The picture was not immensely detailed, but pains had certainly been taken to ensure that the subject was very, very blonde.

Interesting.

Still, there was hair-dye. And adoption. And lots of things, really.

The third picture was another photograph, showing a man with very dark hair and piercing blue eyes, “This is Mia’s little boy. Sort of. He’s sort of her brother.” Sophie seemed to realise the discrepancy here and quickly moved on to the next picture, another crayon drawing. “And these are their other brothers, Fred and Max. Max is specially nice. He gives me piggyback rides. And he helped with the picture.”

Miss Wilkinson cleared her throat. “Sophie, sweetheart. Have you got any pictures of your _family_ in there? We’re learning about our family trees, remember?” 

Sophie looked baffled. “Yes. That’s what I’ve just been showing you.”

“But, what about Mummy, and– Toby was your brother’s name, wasn’t it? Where are they?”

Sophie wiggled the pile of remaining pictures. “They’re all in here!”

“But these other people, they aren’t your family, are they?”

“Well, when Tabitha asked who we were supposed to bring pictures of, you said, everybody who lives in your house,” Sophie said, matter-of-factly. It was, to be fair, exactly what Miss Wilkinson had said. “And Mia does live with us. And so do her brothers. And sometimes Niska. And sometimes some of Niska’s friends.”

“Ah,” Miss Wilkinson said. “They sometimes stay with you, is that it? But they aren’t your family.”

“They _are_!”

“But–” Miss Wilkinson began, a little flustered, “Not – not your blood relatives.”

Sophie raised her eyebrows. She paused. For a moment, Miss Wilkinson thought she might be about to back down.

She was incorrect.

“They are my family,” Sophie said. “It doesn’t matter about blood. Blood is just for doctors and Halloween, and even then it’s only _pretend_ blood. Mia and everyone, they are my family. We love them and we see them lots and when they’re not here we miss them. Isn’t that what you meant when you said to talk about your family?”

“Well…” said Miss Wilkinson faintly, “I suppose…”

“Jack,” said Sophie suddenly, calling on the smallest boy on the front row. “You’ve got a stepdad, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” came the reply.

“So you’re not the same blood. But your mummy said she wanted to live with him so now you’re a family. And Rosie, who’s that big girl who lives in your house?”

“My sister’s girlfriend. Well, they’re going to have a wedding soon.”

“And she’s not the same blood as you. But she lives with you and when she didn’t your sister was sad and missed her all the time.” Sophie turned back to Miss Wilkinson. “And we’re just the same as that. You can’t say people aren’t family just because they’re a different colour or they look different. If you’re family then that’s what you are and that’s it.”

At this point, the debate began.

“That’s not always true!” called someone on the second row. “You can’t just say who you’re family with!”

“Can too!” cried a girl at the back. “Sophie’s right, my mummy says Mike is in our family now so that’s why he has to sleep over every night!”

Miss Wilkinson’s attempts to quieten the class did no good after that. She would have been more forceful and used her Cross Voice, but part of her was marvelling at Sophie’s ability to keep the discussion going, with nobody talking over one another even when there was a fair amount of shouting going down.

When this ‘Mia’ person and the one who said his name was ‘Fred’ came to pick Sophie up at the end of the day, Miss Wilkinson didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I’ve been hearing all about your family,” she said. “We all have. Haven’t we, Sophie?”

“Well, you had some funny ideas,” came the voice from under the little head of curls, in a proud tone. “But I put them right, didn’t I.”

And Miss Wilkinson couldn’t really find it in her to disagree.

 

 


End file.
